Sure do. $1.94/ gal US compared to $1.35/ ltr Cdn. 24 beer for $13.00 (5%) - $2.40 for the cans = $10.60/ 24. Cheaper food and all within a 15 minute drive. 26oz porterhouse steaks (can't find them in Canada anymore) shrimp boat and all the fixings including a drink for $30.00. I can be stateside in less time than it takes to drive across town. I make no apologies for saving my money.

I also remember when our dollar was stronger than the USD and the exchange rate was in our favour. Those were even better times. Unfortunately, I don't think well ever see that again.

You mean 2011?

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Leaving the G7 summit on Saturday, President Trump said that the U.S. might end all trade with America’s closest allies if those countries don’t submit to his demands over reduced trade barriers. Trump also confirmed that he had told the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, and Italy that there should be no tariffs between them and the U.S. of any kind. Whether Trump’s characteristically hyperbolic threat, or overarching proposal, will be taken seriously is another matter.

Referring to what he called “ridiculous and unfair” tariffs on U.S. imports, Trump said, “It’s going to stop — or we’ll stop trading with them. And that’s a very profitable answer, if we have to do it.”

“We’re the piggy bank that everybody is robbing, and that ends,” added Trump, who also repeated his exaggerations of U.S. trade deficits by tens or hundreds of billions of dollars. The president framed his trade attacks as a defense of U.S. national security, citing the weakening of the country’s “balance sheet” as the corresponding threat.

I consider 2011 a short lived anomoly. Before 1960. I was seven but still remember many trips across the border. I most certainly cared little for politics but even a 7 year old knew our dollar was stronger while perusing the shelves.

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Corruption in politics doesn't scare me.What scares me is how comfortable people are doing nothing about it.

I don't see NAFTA going away.Any new agreements might have to be approved by the Senate. They wont like the 270% tariff on US dairy products.What Trudeau forgets is that a lot of Canadians shop just across the border to avoid higher Canadian prices.

That is true, however you are also forgetting that Americans also shop in Canada to take advantage of the higher value American dollar. Its a two way street and one that was working quite well until Trump decided to try and play hardball and discovered that his allies aren't going to be pushed around that easily.

Bail on a major partner because he's saying things you don't like? Nobody bailed on Italy when they (as part of PIGS) almost tanked the EU.

America is actively working against the rest of the G7 at this point.

Italy falling over their own feet wasn't intentional, america threatening and acting on those threats of a trade war on those who don't submit to its demands is intentionally taking down and working against the goals of the G7.

The only comparable to this is the united front(until recently) against russian action in the Crimea.

America Trump is actively working against the rest of the G7 at this point.

There are things Trump can do alone as the executive, but few of them are beyond intervention by Congress. Congress has the power to override Trump on tariffs - it isn't politically easy, but all that is needed is to convince enough people that the economic damage will outweigh the political damage. As the former accumulates, the threshold will be reached by an increasing number of members.

America Trump is actively working against the rest of the G7 at this point.

There are things Trump can do alone as the executive, but few of them are beyond intervention by Congress. [size=13pt]Congress has the power to override Trump on tariffs - it isn't politically easy, but all that is needed is to convince enough people that the economic damage will outweigh the political damage.[/size] As the former accumulates, the threshold will be reached by an increasing number of members.

And that I believe is what is behind the quite detailed list of retaliatory tariffs that Canada (officials, not ministers, not even François-Philippe Champagne, maybe the pick of the litter in Team Trudeau, had that sort of a detailed plan in mind ~ that's officialdom at its best) proposed the day after Trump imposed his tariffs on aluminium and steel. Each tariff is designed, I suspect, to stick a pin into a specific state or even congressional district where our officials think support for President Trump might be wavering. The Europeans are making a similar list but they don't know the Americans as intimately as we do.

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Now both sides are coming out, and if believed, Trudeau is THE bad guy here. Trump gave up the sunset clause and Trudeau DID stab him in the back. The clause appeared to be one of the very few sticking points left and Trump gave it up. I wonder if Trudeau is trying to draw heat from the dairy marketing board?

Trudeau has reason to raise a glass himself, now that this rush of pent-up anti-Trump Canadian catharsis has obscured how much he too is to blame for this trade-war disaster

“There’s a bit of a patriotic boost going on these past few days,” chuckled Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at an event hosted the other day by the supply-managed farmers who have been celebrating that we’re all blaming Trump for this mess instead of their politically powerful protectionist racket, the primary culprit. They were even giving out free milk and eggs near Parliament Hill, Tuesday. Trudeau has reason to raise a glass himself, now that this rush of pent-up anti-Trump Canadian catharsis has obscured how much he too is to blame for this trade-war disaster.

Largely missed in the sudden and furious reaction to Trump’s salty tweets Sunday was a report by CBC’s Rob Russo on The National that night, which clarifies just how wonderfully it appears trade talks were going between Canada and the U.S. That is, until Trudeau held his post-G7 press conference to remind Trump that Canada would “not be pushed around” by any American president and called the president’s treatment of Canada “kind of insulting.”

Trudeau wasn’t wrong, of course, but his comments were clearly ill-timed. Russo reported that Trump had offered a major giveaway to Trudeau in a NAFTA meeting on the G7 sidelines, finally agreeing to waive his longstanding demand for a sunset clause, the automatic expiry of the deal if it wasn’t renewed every five years, which had been one of the last sticking points. Russo said that Trump’s sudden concession was “surprising (to) his own chief negotiator, according to people who were there, and people (there) think that it’s great.” At the end of the summit, with a NAFTA deal perhaps within grasp, the celebrating was underway. Then came the news conference.

It’s obvious to everyone, and probably even to Trump himself, that the president overreacted, calling Trudeau “very dishonest” and “weak,” in his fit of pique. But it’s also not hard to see why he might have felt antagonized. As Don Lenihan, a senior associate at the progressive think-tank Canada 2020 noted in a commentary this week, “In Trump’s mind, the decision to waive the sunset clause had been a generous act of reconciliation. Yet Trudeau publicly denigrated him just to score political points with Canadians.”

Trudeau, who has since refused to confirm or deny Trump’s offer about the sunset clause, might not have meant it that way (Lenihan suggests he was actually trying to play it safe, sticking to his previous script, since the deal over the sunset clause hadn’t yet been made public). But the president was also hours away from meeting America’s arguably most dangerous enemy, Kim Jong Un. That kind of pressure is hard to imagine; the resulting over-sensitivity to even a mild display of back talk — just after he left a successful meeting in which he apparently offered a significant, friendly gesture — is, however, perfectly easy to imagine.

And after Kim and Trump’s cordial summit, Canada might just rank as the country least able to get along with the U.S. right now. That can’t just be Trump’s fault. From throwing a stink bomb into NAFTA talks with their “progressive” demands, to bringing in protectionist union leader Jerry Dias to consult on the negotiations, to their defiant defence of the unjustified tariff wall protecting Canada’s dairy barons, the Liberals have not done an excellent job of figuring out how to make a deal with a man who literally loves nothing more than making deals. After nearly a year of discussions, things seem at an all-time low. That cannot be blamed all on one man.

Meanwhile, our own overreaction to some ill-considered comments from that one man is growing dangerous for the future of free trade. The last few days have been paradise for protectionists, with protected-milk parties on Sparks Street, unanimous declarations in the House of Commons praising our mighty agriculture cartel, and Tory leader Andrew Scheer demoting MP Maxime Bernier for refusing to publicly submit to the party’s proudly anti-market beliefs about groceries. The steelworker union is today demanding big, fat tariffs against U.S. imports, and also big, fat handouts from taxpayers to help them survive their battle against consumers. And Dias, head of the labour union Unifor, says we need more tariffs, faster: “I think we have to fight fire with fire … strike back… hit hard,” he said this week. “I believe it’s the only real way to get this guy’s attention.”

Dias evidently doesn’t understand how to handle this White House any better than when he was called in to taint the NAFTA talks, because Canada already has Trump’s attention, unfortunately, and the challenge is how to make the best of it. It was Trudeau’s responsibility to make sure America’s attentions remained friendly and Canada’s exports kept flowing, not to stumble into a trade war. That we’re nevertheless here means he must share the blame.

« Last Edit: June 14, 2018, 11:28:21 by recceguy »

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Corruption in politics doesn't scare me.What scares me is how comfortable people are doing nothing about it.

America Trump is actively working against the rest of the G7 at this point.

There are things Trump can do alone as the executive, but few of them are beyond intervention by Congress. Congress has the power to override Trump on tariffs - it isn't politically easy, but all that is needed is to convince enough people that the economic damage will outweigh the political damage. As the former accumulates, the threshold will be reached by an increasing number of members.

Japan's reaction seems to be one of sitting on the fence. Italy, appears behind Trump. We're not hearing all the doomsday rhetoric from them. We know the EU ties to the globalist cause. More like against the G4 of Canada, Britain, France and Germany, the globalist, open border countries. The ones with the press, image and political backing to spin this their way.

So I don't see Trump against the G7. I see it as 4 against 3.

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Corruption in politics doesn't scare me.What scares me is how comfortable people are doing nothing about it.

Very interesting, W601. So Canada and China are almost identical total trade, at 1/5 Trillion US dollars each, yet while Canada’s trade surplus with the US is only 4.7% compared to China’s 281.3% surplus, Canada gets the higher tariffs. It must be that China doesn’t pose a National Security threat to the US.

Canada is at 270% on dairy so I am sure this is a ploy by Trump to see that reversed.

'Lies, damned lies, and statistics' they say...

So what is the issue, really...let's take a different look at things from the Trump Administration's focus on tariff percentages...

FACT*: The U.S. dairy industry exports 134% more, or 2.43 times the dairy products physically into Canada, than Canada exports to the U.S. Woah! That's what some would call a physical trade surplus....for the U.S.! I thought Trump wanted to level all the surpluses/deficits? Apparently only by the figures he chooses. Trump and the farmers of the U.S. dairy industry are probably quite happy more than doubling the amount of Dairy exports they send North of the border, than Canada sends down.

Interesting that few to none really question the huge subsidies that the US Government provides American dairy farmers to allow them to charge such low prices pre-tariff. In many parts of the world, heavily-subsidized trade like that is called "dumping"...you know, like the U.S. forestry industry accuses the Canadian forestry industry of doing (yet the WTO says no)...but its okay to dump when it's America apparently.

All to say, that the issue is not quite the facile "remove the 'unfair' 270% tariff on our [heavily subsidized, but we'll never admit it] American dairy products" argument.

Now both sides are coming out, and if believed, Trudeau is THE bad guy here. Trump gave up the sunset clause and Trudeau DID stab him in the back. The clause appeared to be one of the very few sticking points left and Trump gave it up. I wonder if Trudeau is trying to draw heat from the dairy marketing board?

Very interesting, W601. So Canada and China are almost identical total trade, at 1/5 Trillion US dollars each, yet while Canada’s trade surplus with the US is only 4.7% compared to China’s 281.3% surplus, Canada gets the higher tariffs. It must be that China doesn’t pose a National Security threat to the US.

Ah, but with the global growth in 'populist' political leadership, facts are increasingly dispensable -- from Putin denying any knowledge of either 'green men' in Crimea or the SA-11 missing one SAM missile returning to Russia following the Malaysian airliner downing over the Donbass... to Dutarte disavowing responsibility for the Philippines' 12,000+ drug-related murders.... to a growing list of political lies in between.

Godwin warning: it was codified in Hitler's Mein Kampf (1925) as "große Lüge" or the "big lie" -- the use of a lie so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously." It's obviously making a comeback, and is so increasingly common that perpetrators are given a free pass -- "oh sure he lies all the time, but.... [insert current hobbyhorse] -- even by people who would previously deny there being any lies, routinely falling back on the default lie to cover the current lie, it's "fake news." But now politicians' lies are so constant, that peoples' senses become dulled to even noticing the bigger ones.

In the case of the US in particular, I see a problem in repetitive claims that the media is lying and the judiciary crooked and conspiratorial having a global knock-on effect; any corrupt leader can now simply say, "if the world's 'greatest and most liberal country' cannot trust its media, police, or courts, then we cannot either," in dismissing the efforts of these people. In effect, legitimate pillars of fair governance are being hamstrung.

You only use 10 percent of your brain. Eating carrots improves your eyesight. Vitamin C cures the common cold. Crime in the United States is at an all-time high.

None of those things are true.

But the facts don't actually matter: People repeat them so often that you believe them. Welcome to the “illusory truth effect,” a glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth. Marketers and politicians are masters of manipulating this particular cognitive bias—which perhaps you have become more familiar with lately.

But be warned, she uses US political examples that some people may find hurtful.

"Mr. President, I have an idea. I think we should alienate our closest NATO allies, and unilaterally start a trade war with them."

"Who do you mean?"

"Who you ask? Well, Mr. President...everybody who matters. Canada. Europe. Japan. Probably South Korea soon too, just so they don't feel left out. We want everybody to know we're willing to cripple relations very quickly, based on assumptions & wrong facts! And we are going to tell the countries that buy our military equipment, allow our military to have bases on their soil, and constantly support our military-driven foreign policy that the reason for this is that THEY pose a threat to our national security!"

"Okay, and then what? This sounds like an awful idea. Are you serious? Is it April fool's today?"

"No sir, I'm totally serious. And then once we piss everybody off, and even threaten to make their people suffer as a result of their governments trying to negotiate in their own interest, we need to re-ignite a trade war with China. Remember the concessions we made a few months ago, against the recommendations of the FBI? Well, we're going to tear those up and start a trade war with China too."

"Ummmmmmm...well...sure. Why not. This administration has been absolutely killing it since we got here, I've obviously got amazing advisors. Good job guys, make it happen!"

"Mr. President, I have an idea. I think we should alienate our closest NATO allies, and unilaterally start a trade war with them."

"Who do you mean?"

"Who you ask? Well, Mr. President...everybody who matters. Canada. Europe. Japan. Probably South Korea soon too, just so they don't feel left out. We want everybody to know we're willing to cripple relations very quickly, based on assumptions & wrong facts! And we are going to tell the countries that buy our military equipment, allow our military to have bases on their soil, and constantly support our military-driven foreign policy that the reason for this is that THEY pose a threat to our national security!"

"Okay, and then what? This sounds like an awful idea. Are you serious? Is it April fool's today?"

"No sir, I'm totally serious. And then once we piss everybody off, and even threaten to make their people suffer as a result of their governments trying to negotiate in their own interest, we need to re-ignite a trade war with China. Remember the concessions we made a few months ago, against the recommendations of the FBI? Well, we're going to tear those up and start a trade war with China too."

"Ummmmmmm...well...sure. Why not. This administration has been absolutely killing it since we got here, I've obviously got amazing advisors. Good job guys, make it happen!"